


Water Under the Bridge

by illyriantremors



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: A tiny TINY bit of comfort, F/M, Illyrian!Nesta, NSFW, Smut, Wing Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 04:32:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10268315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyriantremors/pseuds/illyriantremors
Summary: Nesta discovers in a fit of rage that Feyre isn’t the only one who can summon Illyrian wings at will. After a particularly long day of flying leaves her body aching, Cassian is there to sooth the pain in ways Nesta has never experienced before. Featuring Illyrian!Nesta and much wing sin. NSFW.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tealdeal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tealdeal/gifts).



> Title comes from the Adele song. It doesn’t totally fit lyrically for this fic, but it’s all I listened to while I wrote it and I don’t really do music while writing, so... yeah.
> 
> Also, the first time I posted it, I posted the unedited version. I have since fixed it. Sorry for anyone who had to slog through all my crappy grammar!!

The first time Nesta discovers she has wings - she’s screaming at Cassian.

Not just a faint whine of annoyance. Not a simple shout over some shallow disagreement. Not torn up words spat inches from his face.

But top of her lungs, blue in the face, going to kick his ass into the new year _screaming_.

The argument was stupid, as usual. And when it’s over, she can’t even quite remember what horrible thing it was about. The war had ended. Cassian had fought what little he could. Nesta had left to do her part. Maybe there were bitter words exchanged over still bleeding wounds. Maybe not.

All Nesta knows is that one moment she is so absolutely enraged at the jab Cassian let slip (that she knows he did not truly mean) and the next, her back feels the way her lungs do drowning at the bottom of the ocean, swimming up, up, up in a desperate search for air until finally that bubble of water _bursts_ , and the muscles of her back split open in agonizing pain and -

She has _wings_.

Great, glorious membranous wings that stretch wide around her and seem to absorb all that wasted energy she spent and threaten Cassian for her.

Cassian - whose jaw had promptly hit the floor at the sight of those wings as they unfurled and cast red and gold shadows about the ground in the sunlight.

Nesta had stood back smugly that day at the way Cassian stared at her. She didn’t even fight him or pretend to stay angry when he stepped close, slid his hands around her waist and up along her back to the base of the wings as if to touch them, and she saw the sparkling in his eyes like diamonds as he whispered, awestruck, in her ear, _“Nesta.”_

That had set her grinning ear to ear.

It takes weeks for Nesta to figure out how to summon the wings at will. Whatever magic the Cauldron gave her over them, it’s not easy to figure out. And once she has mastered bringing the wings out at will, they’re weak and untrained. The muscles are loose and imbalanced, unable to support the size of her wingspan and _Cauldron_ is her wingspan massive.

(Cassian eyes it for weeks trying not to compare.)

At first, Cassian insists she refrain from flying. She has to do stretching exercises to build up her strength, but Nesta grows restless rather quickly. Another shouting match between them - _You may literally_ die _if you attempt to jump off that cliff Nesta Archeron_ \- has her threatening to have Feyre train her, or Mother help him, _Rhys._ And so finally, Cassian relents.

And then... Nesta is flying. Soaring high into the sky over Velaris.

She can only handle a few minutes at a time, but _fuck_ if it doesn’t feel glorious. The world is stretched out below her and she feels like she could control it all from where she swoops and bellows above it. Every time she lands, every time the muscles scream with pain and tiredness, she hates it and forces Cass to help her keep training, keep going because _damn it_ \- she is going to master this.

It only takes one time - that first time in the air and Nesta doesn’t know how she can live again if the Cauldron hadn’t given her this gift. Maybe this was the Cauldron’s way of making up for the other awful things it did to her. She doesn’t quite mind.

Minutes eventually stretch into longer episodes. An hour. Then a few. Until she can fly just as long as Cassian. He wouldn’t be surprised if she could go longer than him.

But it’s a struggle getting there. Her wings are so large and her body has become one hell of a beast to support up in the air. And all Nesta wants to do for months on end is fly. So naturally, Cassian finds himself on the receiving end of many an endless, salty landing with Nesta.

“Again,” she snaps at him.

“Nesta,” and it’s a warning.

Nesta swivels on her feet and those wings flex behind her, Nesta’s own brand of warning. “I said, _again_.”

Cassian crosses his arms with a wide berth at his legs and tosses one of those taunting little smiles she both loathes and adores. “You didn’t say _please_.”

But Nesta doesn’t back down. Not by a long shot. She doesn’t even stand still. She takes two great strides bridging the distance between them and leans right up into his face as far as she can on the tips of her toes, her leathers groaning around her body as she reaches. “You didn’t earn it, _sweetheart_ ,” she snarls. “I want to go again.”

He knows she’ll kill him if he lets out the chuckle he has locked inside his chest. So instead, he gently grips her shoulders and leans down until their foreheads are almost touching.

And thank the Mother she doesn’t pull away from that touch.

“Nesta,” he says. “You just flew for an hour straight. That’s farther than you’ve ever come before and Cauldron, I’m proud. But you need to rest. I’m not joking when I say you could kill yourself if you go too far.” His hands slide slowly, sweetly from her shoulders to her neck until he cups her face, but Nesta feels so tight - so tense in that hold. His little spitfire in all that raging spirit always. It makes him feel light as air. “I’d really prefer it if you didn’t die, hmm?”

Nesta’s eyes soften for just a moment, her shoulders slumping. She dances up on the tips of her toes again and Cassian thinks she might lean into him finally, maybe even kiss him the way she sometimes does after she’s been flying for the day and the wind has left her breathless and she takes Cassian home to discover entirely new ways of feeling the rush flying creates in them both...

But just when her lips graze his own, Nesta teases out, “I said _again_ , Commander,” and Cassian curses, “So we go again.” And Nesta can tell by how close they’re standing that Cassian’s _other_ Illyrian skills are kicking into overdrive.

He takes a great breath, adjusting his stance and likely certain other parts beneath his pants, but releases his hold on her. “Alright, Ness. We go again.”

They do. And with the wind in her hair and the sun on her skin, it is heaven.

Cassian insists they limit themselves to ten more minutes only.

So naturally, Nesta flies for twenty.

* * *

Nesta doesn’t tell Cassian it was a mistake. She doesn’t have to. He just _knows_ because his stupid, ridiculously good looking ass told her it was. Nesta enjoyed her extra twenty minutes, but damn if she can’t feel it the second her feet hit solid ground again.

The groan that is halfway to her lips falters as she looks up and sees Cassian cock his head to the side, eyebrows raised.

_Told you so_.

_Fuck off_.

Cassian really does chuckle this time and steps up to help her along, but that just pisses her off even more. She is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and she isn’t going to let him ruin was has been a perfectly wonderful day in the heat of summer flying over the sea.

Nesta trudges inside the House of Wind, letting Cassian trail after her however many feet away. She doesn’t bother checking.

“Nesta.”

She hears him - distantly. And she can’t quite discern the tone in his voice. If he’s angry. Or amused. Or...

“Nesta!”

...maybe just the tiniest bit concerned.

All she registers is the throb at her back and the way her wings shoot pain through the muscles and veins like lightning, if lightning could strike the same place more than once with such hideous pain.

_Too much_ , she thinks and she hates that she does. _Too much. Today was too, too much._

Her body feels like it’s going to fall to pieces. Even her feet hurt and she hasn’t been on them hardly at all.

Nesta opens the door to the room she shares with Cassian, rubbing her hand over her neck and whatever she can reach of her shoulder. The muscles rejoice in the touch, but it’s not enough as sweat sticks over her skin like glue and sleep yawns behind her eyes.

“Nesta - hey.” Cassian closes the door and forces Nesta to stop walking. She doesn’t care if he’s mad or even if he wants to fight her. At this point, she’d let him win (though she’d never admit he was right all along). She just wants to fall to pieces and be done with it.

But Cassian doesn’t yell at her. She wants to feel guilty because had the roles been reversed, she knows she would have been in his face for being so stupid out there.

That’s why she loves him. One of the many, many reasons why. That unending compassion and sweetness. That knowledge of how to dim the fires down to kindling embers when her burners don’t know how to be anything but an inferno. His ability to slow her down, to quiet her soul.

He cups her face in his large, calloused hands, just as he had some thirty minutes ago. This time when he leans down, their foreheads really do touch.

“Nesta, sweetheart - my sweetheart,” he whispers and Nesta wants to melt into the way the words sound so soft on her ears. “ _Now_ will you let me take care of you?”

Slowly, Nesta brings her hands up to meet his, enjoying the way his rough fingers feel against her own that are still soft and on the whole untested compared to his. She closes her eyes and breathes, albeit a little reluctantly, _“Yes.”_

A roaring noise meets her ears and Nesta’s eyes pop open.

_Magic_.

Water is running smoothly in the bathing room, filing the large pool they have to the brim. Her knees buckle a little at the thought of that bath, not just of relaxing, but of how it will feel against her skin, and her wings...

Cassian chuckles faintly. “Go get in,” he says, toying with the straps of her flying leathers, teasing where the buckles play against the skin at her neck. “You _smell_.”

Nesta rolls her eyes and steps squarely back, causing another wave of amusement to roll off of him. In punishment, she undoes the straps Cass had been playing with herself and lets the top half of her leathers fall to her waist exposing her to him - and Cassian is _not_ permitted to touch.

When she steps through the threshold to the bathing room and realizes he hasn’t followed, though certainly he watched her walk admiring the view as she did so, she peaks over her shoulder. “Aren’t you coming?”

“In a minute,” he says and, rather unusually, he... leaves. Their game left unfinished.

Nesta shrugs and finishes stripping off the rest of her leathers, letting them fall to the floor likes leaves upon an autumn breeze trailing after her footsteps on the cool marble floor. Her toes graze the tops of the pool the magic has created for her and Nesta groans.

No more slowness. She dives right in soaking her body underneath the surface that is warm and caresses her skin in luxury. The shooting pain in her wings does not fade entirely, but it lightens a considerable amount the further she sinks in.

When Nesta surfaces, pushing her now loose hair out of her face and brushing the water back from her eyes, she spins in the pool and finds Cassian sitting himself on the raised seat at the edge. His leathers are gone and his hair is still up in a knot at the back of his head.

She cocks a brow.

_What have you been doing?_

A smirk as he slips a little further into the water, reaching for the shampoo as he goes.

_Wait and see_.

She huffs and floats on her back away from him, her breasts cresting the surface of the pool. Let him see what she thinks of _that_ reply, thank you very much.

Nesta smooths her hair back as she stands back up and sees Cassian pouring a spot of shampoo into his hands. And then he swims for her.

“Ah-ah,” Nesta says, finding her own ledge to sit on and stopping Cass with a foot to his shoulder before he can reach her.

“I thought you said I could take care of you now,” he groans.

Nesta shoots him a wicked smirk that is every bit fiercer than a day’s worth of shit-eating grins from him. “You didn’t say _please_ ,” she pouts.

“Nesta-”

“Ooh, that’s not ‘please’ now, is it?”

Cassian nearly goes head under the water, which ripples all around them at the weight of his massive body shuddering lower. “Nesta, for fuck’s sake, sweetheart...”

He might stop talking then. He might not. All Nesta really knows is that seeing Cassian flustered and frustrated and cursing for _her_ does that _thing_ to her insides where she’s loose and taut all at once and ready to explode.

“Fine,” she says, says as though she is giving up a great deal in removing that foot against his shoulder and letting him near her again. But inside, her muscles are rejoicing in anticipation of where those hands might go.

Cassian replaces some of the rosemary scented shampoo - her favorite - that had slipped away and Nesta turns around, her wings tucking in tightly at her back so Cassian can access her more easily. And when his fingers graze her scalp... Cauldron, she can’t help how quickly she falls backwards into him.

She doesn’t care that it amuses him to no end how she folds. For Cassian, she’d fold every time in the end. For him alone.

Layers of tension peel away with every circle his fingers rub into her hair and at the base of her neck where he stops to knead the muscles for a few minutes in which Nesta isn’t sure if she’s in the pool with him or still up in the air flying.

He guides her back to float in the pool so he can rinse the shampoo out and then they take turns washing themselves up of all the sweat and grime flying under the hot sun brought them. Cassian holds a towel up for Nesta as she steps out of the pool and enough of the stress has faded, she can feel her wings giving out behind her, ready to sink back into her skin and disappear for the day.

“No,” Cassian says, noticing the way her wings tremble in goodbye. He holds the towel stiffly, keeping her from fully wrapping it around her. “Please don’t.”

Nesta snatches the towel out of his hands and finishes tying it herself. “Why not?”

Cassian parts his lips to say something and stops short, eyeing her up and down with special thought to her wings. He licks his lips once quite clearly. “Just... please don’t.”

“Mmm,” Nesta hums. “You said the magic word. That’s better.”

She spins and waltzes away from him into their room... and promptly stops short feeling as though the air has been knocked from her lungs and she’s in a free fall.

The bed is freshly made, magic no doubt, and there are candles everywhere, the curtains drawn so that the lighting is dim from the near-dark sky outside. The low, sweet red glow is charming, relaxing, and a little seductive if she’s honest.

Cassian’s lips suddenly appear at Nesta’s ear, his arms twining around her. He’s dried off, but very obviously left the towel behind at the pool as his body presses in to Nesta’s. And she loves the way he molds around her perfectly like a new pair of gloves.

“I told you I wanted to take care of you,” he says in a soft, sultry voice she doesn’t hear from him outside this room. Not even when he teases her into a fury.

That’s it.

That does it.

Right there.

_That_.

Nesta’s will vanishes. Her head falls back to rest against him as his hands gently brush up her arms and he leaves a soft, intimate kiss just above her collarbone. Her wings flex in a shudder as he runs a single finger along the lining of her membranes, forcing a dizzying tingle to dance along her spine. She almost wonders at the touch except that Cassian cuts it off abruptly and scoops her up into his arms.

“If this is the punishment I get for ignoring your advice,” Nesta says as Cassian sets her on the bed and takes the towel from her, “I’m going to ignore you more often.”

“When do you not ignore me, Nesta?” Cassian retorts.

She shrugs. “Fair point.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” he says with a laugh and then makes a circular motion with his fingers, his voice returning to that low sultry tone. “Turn around.”

Another shrug, but she does as he asks and lays on her stomach finding a comfortable spot for her head against the pillows. Her arms rest at either side.

Her eyes close automatically the first time Cassian touches her, hands kneading at the knots that have grown thick at the base of her back and slowly working their way up. Nesta groans, all self-control gone. She doesn’t have enough left to tease him anyway. “Good Ness - good,” he says at the sound of her pleasure and continues working. He doesn’t stop until every knot becomes a loose cord that is pliant and relaxed beneath his touch.

Easy. Nice. _Happy_. This is what happiness feels like, Nesta decides. Cassian and his hands all over her making her feel loved.

No. Not just loved. _  
_

_Cherished._

Cassian massages her back until there are no more knots to work. And then he works over her arms and when those are done, he moves back down to her back to work her rear, her thighs, her calves, and finally her feet. Nesta is left feeling like jelly, she’s never been so relaxed.

When his hands leave her feet and she doesn’t immediately feel his weight over her, she thinks he’s finished and parts her lips. “Thank you - oh- _ohh_ ,” she says as an electrifying sensation sweeps over her.

Cassian has come back to straddle her lower back, careful not to apply too much of his weight which he keeps mostly to his knees, and his hands have found new muscles to work - at her _wings_.

And Cauldron it feels... it feels...

_“Ooh, oh, Cassian.”_

That’s how it feels.

“Do you like that, Nesta,” he purrs. Nesta knows she does not have to answer the question. Her body is doing it for her. Even she can scent the arousal drifting immediately off her, that’s how _badly_ this touch moves through her.

They’ve never done this together before. She’d heard Feyre and Mor snickering about it once - something to do with Illyrians getting off on their wings, but Nesta has assumed it was just another _sensitive Illyrian babies_ thing or some such nonsense. She didn’t know... hadn’t realized...

_Fuuuuuck_.

Cassian increases the pressure a fraction with every sweep of his fingers, starting where the membrane is closest to her spine and moving slowly outwards following the veins and bones. Each stroke sends a shiver deep inside Nesta that trails down and ends in a pool of heat between her legs that is quickly building, building, building towards something bigger.

Another groan escapes her and she feels Cassian shift slightly behind her. “Good, Ness,” he praises. “Keep going. Nesta - _keep going_.”

She’s not sure what she’s suppose to keep going to. Surely he doesn’t expect her to -

His fingers reach a particularly sensitive spot just under the talons of either wing that send her fingers curling into the sheets and pillows in answer to her own question. Her hips buck under Cassian and he lowers himself a little further to keep her from moving and fuck - he’s hard. So, so hard against her back as he leans over her and whispers at her ear, “If you come for me, I’ll put my cock inside you and fuck you properly.”

He swirls his fingers over _that_ spot one more time and Nesta has to bite down on the pillow to keep from screaming.

But she can’t let him get away with this. This is... the most exquisite thing she’s ever felt in her entire life. But she’ll be damned if she lets Cassian have all the fun.

Which is why, while he’s still bent over her against her back, she throws a hand behind her and brushes roughly against the first stretch of Cassian’s wing she can find.

His cock twitches hard on her back in reply, much to Nesta’s delight.

Cassian pulls away at once with a snarl ripping from his mouth - feral and aroused and all kinds of _excited_. “I thought I was taking care of _you_ right now.”

“That’s what you get,” Nesta says, bucking her hips up underneath him until he gets the idea. Cassian laughs.

“Alright, sweetheart. If you insist...”

He pushes off her and for a moment, the loss of contact on her wings is _devastating_. But then Cassian is picking her hips up, tilting them at an angle, his cock resting against her entrance. “Nesta...” he purrs softly, a request.

Nesta closes her eyes and nods. And then Cassian is pushing into her, entering him and that glorious hard length of him is enough to make her forget his fingers had ever been at her back. He’s thick and _perfect_ and as he lowers her hips back down a hair to relax her back, Nesta adjusts to that wonderful feel of him.

Cassian lets his hands massage at her hips while she gets a feel for him, but then he stops and seems to question something. “This won’t do,” he says, voice glazed over with lust and want.

Nesta almost growls in irritation when Cassian is suddenly pulling her body up flush against him, his arms twining around her to hold her place. His chest heaves into her back and even though he hasn’t made a single thrust, just that shift in angles has Nesta feeling ready to explode from the tight coil of heat that has accumulated around where his cock now rests inside her.

“Cassian,” she grounds out and immediately, he thrusts, sending her body up and back down against him, sweat growing slick between them. They’re going to need another bath when this is done...

“You didn’t expect me,” Cassian says, one hand coming to cradle a breast, “not to touch you,” the other hand getting dangerously low on her stomach, “while I fucked you, did you?” And then his mouth - his cauldron blessed fucking mouth - comes down on her wings and licks at the membrane with his tongue.

_His tongue - fuck, his tongue._

Her hands fly behind her and grope for his hair, but it’s still in that knot, so Nesta finds the leather strap and yanks until the strands fall free around his neck and she can run her fingers through every glorious inch of it. Cassian seems to like it, murmuring his approval at her ear, and she feels his thrusts quicken.

Nesta is already so close. So very, very close. Each thrust has the fire inside her building towards the edge. She had already been ready to fall over the cliff with her wings alone, but now that he’s _inside_ her too...

“You promised to come for me, Nesta,” Cassian says, his breathing labored. “Come.” He makes his deepest thrust yet, his fingers playing in the soft hairs between her legs, but not _quite_ low enough to really... _“Come.”_

She grabs his hand and moves it _exactly_ where it will make her come and the sensation that shoots through her is unmatched to anything she’s felt before. “Lick me,” she barks out. “My wings - Cassian, my wings, my wings, my wings _please_.”

_“Fuck - Ness.”_

Cassian’s curse is barely out before his tongue is laving at her membranes again and within two licks, Nesta’s free - falling straight over the edge and falling to pieces around his cock as her orgasm hits her. Her arm darts out in front of her looking for a wall or a headboard to brace herself on that is too far away.

But Cassian has her. He always has her.

The hand fondling her now peaked nipples lowers to support her waist as he works the last waves of her climax out of her. The other takes Nesta’s outstretched hand and moves it... moves it...

Mercy, he moves it his own wings. On instinct, the hand still fisted tightly in his hair slides down to join.

“Now you can play with me, Ness,” Cassian says.

And she does - hard.

There’s not much she can reach of him in this position, so what Nesta finds, she makes count.

Her touch is hard, no time for teasing. And her nails scratch enough to ring a moan out of her lover she wants to listen to over and over. “Yes, Nesta,” Cassian says growing breathless. “Like that. _Exactly like that - Nesta... Nesta...”  
_

Feeling more satisfied than ever before, Nesta wonders if the tricks he used on her would work on him. When her fingers hit the spot just below Cassian’s talons, there is no warning before he gives an erratic, hard thrust into her seeming at a loss to control it.

Nesta grins like a fool, tossing her head back and laughing, enjoying the way he fills her so completely, takes such pleasure in letting her melt him into a puddle for her to command, fucks her so senseless...

One stroke more...

Two...

And Cassian’s cock throbs and spills itself inside Nesta as he comes, his head falling into the crook of her neck and biting the skin as gently as he can manage, though Nesta knows there will be a faint bruise there if she were to look in a mirror later on tonight.

She matches his final few thrusts with strokes of her own upon his wings and then her hands are back in his hair, cradling his head at her side. Cassian hugs her tightly to himself and together, they enjoy the feel of him lingering inside her as they sit up on the bed.

Five seconds... five minutes.. five years. Nesta has no idea how much time goes by.

But finally, Cassian pulls himself gently from her with a kiss at her neck, right over the fresh bruise blooming there that marks her as his own. Nesta hums contentedly as he does, her fingers giving a grateful little scratch over his scalp. He smiles smugly and leaves to the bathroom to fetch a towel so they can clean themselves up.

It’s as he’s walking back that Cassian debates what quip to torment Nesta with next.

_You should say please more often._

_So is what Mor and Feyre told you true?_

_That’ll teach you not to ignore me, eh?_

But when he makes it back to the room, he stops and almost drops the towel from out of his hands.

Nesta has fallen right back against the pillows and sheets, her body limp and satisfied, wings no longer anywhere to be found, and she’s already fast asleep in satiated bliss. No more pains or aches.

If she could hear him, he’d love to give her a whole new kind of taunting jab, but the soft smile resting on her face - the one only he ever sees and even then, in rare moments that are few and far between with his Ness - stops him.

Gently as he can, Cassian cleans Nesta up, tosses away the towel, and curls as best he can around her with a final kiss on her cheek.

And then he joins her in sleep.

xx


End file.
